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Thursday, August 19, 2010
Île Bizard renames arena after Lecavalier
posted by jmeagher at 8h10
Vinny relaxes at home with father Yvon in 2005. (Gazette, John Kenney)
Vincent Lecavalier put Île Bizard on the hockey map and now the island is returning the favour.
On Thursday, the arena at Sport Complexe Saint-Raphaël will be renamed after the island’s most famous native son.
There is already a Pavillon Vincent Lecavalier in Île Bizard. The community centre is located next to the soccer and football fields and outdoor hockey rink where Vinny, now 30, played as a youth.
But a hockey arena bearing his name seems more fitting for the NHL star who left home as a teenager in the 1990s to pursue his hockey dream, but still comes home every summer to spend time with family and friends.
Vinny attended John Rennie High School in Pointe Claire before heading to Notre Dame College, the renowned hockey factory in Saskatchewan. He returned to Quebec to play major-junior hockey for the Rimouski Oceanic.
In 1998, he was the first overall draft pick of the Tampa Bay Lightning, the NHL team he helped lead to a Stanley Cup in 2004.
The rest you know.
Montreal hockey fans have long dreamed of seeing a homegrown francophone star like Vinny in a Canadiens uniform. Former Habs GM Bob Gainey tried to swing a trade a couple of years back, but a deal never got done.
If anything, the hockey talent drain seems to going in the other direction, due south, these days.
The Lightning recently hired Guy Boucher as their head coach, and Martin Raymond as an assistant. Boucher was being groomed for promotion last year with the Hamilton Bulldogs, the Habs AHL farm team, but the Lightning struck first.
Raymond, a fellow McGill alumnus, soon followed.
So, what do Boucher, Raymond and Lecavalier all have in common?
All three played their minor hockey on the West Island for the defunct North Shore organization. Raymond grew up in Pierrefonds, while Boucher lived in Roxboro.
Maybe all three are sitting on a beach in Florida, sipping cold beverages and reminiscing about the good ole days at chilly Pierrefonds Arena.
Beats the heck out of a picnic lunch at Cap St. Jacques.
How much do they miss Montreal?
Ask them in February.